On the far side of the Learning Center is the entrance to the grav tube Eldest and I use. This one is just for us, a direct link to the Feeder Level. The one that runs between the Shipper Level and the City in the Feeder Level is for everyone else.

I press my wi-com button behind my left ear.

“Command?” the pleasant female voice of my wi-com asks.

“Grav tube control,” I say.

Beep, beep-beep fills my ear as my wi-com connects to the grav tube control. I roll my thumb over the biometric scanner on the far wall of the Learning Center, and a circular section of the floor slides open. There is nothing under it but empty space.

My stomach lurches — as it always does — when I step into the empty air of the grav tube. But the wi-com has linked to the ship’s gravitational system inside the tube, and I bob gently over the air before sinking down like a penny dropped in a fountain’s pool. Darkness envelops me as I slip down the tube through the Shipper Level, and then light floods my eyes. I blink; the Feeder Level is below me, distorted through the clear grav tube. The City rises up along the far wall, and the farms spread throughout the center, vast fields of green dotted with crops, cows, sheep, goats. From here, the Feeder Level is huge, a world in and of itself. 6,400 acres designed to support over 3,000 people looks like forever when you’re gazing down at it. But when you’re actually there, in the fields or the City, crammed up next to people whose eyes are always on you, it feels much more crowded.

The grav tube ends about seven feet from the ground of the Feeder Level. For a second, I bob in the air at the end of the tube, then beep, beep-beep fills my ear as my wi-com connects with the ship’s gravity system, and I drop to the little round metal platform under the tube. I hop off the platform and begin walking down one of the four main roads on the Feeder Level. Only a few yards ahead is a tall brick building, the Recorder Hall, and beyond that is the Hospital.